LL-L "Language promotion" 2010.01.08 (03) [EN]

[Lowlands-L List]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 08 January 2010 - Volume 03
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language promotion



Thank you very much for your interesting comments today, David and Marcus.
Here are just a couple of comments of mine in return.

Marcus:

The most recent developments in Catalonia are quite stunning, at least to
me. On 13 September 2009 the municipality Arenys de Munt held an inofficial
local referendum in which the voters were asked: "Do you agree on Catalonia
becoming an independent, democratic and social State of law, integrated in
the European Union?"

It resulted in 96.2% voting Yes, only 2.3% voting No, with a participation
rate of 41%. After this many more municipalities held inofficial
referendums. So far 168 municipalities have done so. There was not a single
one where less than 80% voted Yes. The outcome so far is 94.89% Yes and
3.21% No. Other municipalities will vote in two more rounds in February and
April.

Of course the participation rate is rather low with 27.41% (the vote is
totally unofficial) and the voting areas so far are mostly rural (e.g.
Barcelona has not yet agreed to hold a vote). But it's still quite
impressive: almost 95% support for full independance!



Far be it from me to rain on this parade, but ... I have read these reports
and I must say that the percentages seem suspect to me. For one thing, large
numbers of residents in these areas are from other parts of Spain or have
roots there, and among these must be a good percentage that does not use and
care about Catalan and/or endorse Catalonian independence. (Note
differentiation between “Catalan” and “Catalonian”, the latter referring to
the region with its ethnically diverse population.) After all, throughout
the eastern area you get by with Castilian, although not knowing Catalan
probably keeps you out of certain social circles. 95% voting for full
independence? Hmm ... I don’t know about that. I expect that Barcelona with
have very different results.



Marcus about Low Saxon orthography:

This problem can only be overcome when more people learn to read or write
Low Saxon (by media exposition or in school) and people start to realize
that the (Dutch or German) set of phonetic mapping rules they learned in
school is not the only possible set of phonetic mapping rules.



Amen and halleluiah, brother!



And Marcus wrote:

The Low Saxon house was another example of an ethnic element that clearly
suggests that the North formed an ethnic unit. The southern border of the
distribution area of the traditional Low Saxon house exactly coincides with
the language border. Of course traditional house types have absolutely no
meaning for today's life, but they still show, that there was some kind of
ethnic border that certain "memes" (to use a very generic term) were unable
to cross.



For the benefit of others: Marcus is talking about a type of half-timbered
farmhouse (German *(nieder)sächsisches (Fach-)Hallenhaus > niederdeutsches
(Fach-)Hallenhaus*, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_German_house) that is
specific to the old Saxon-speaking region. It used to house humans and
animals under one large (originally thatched) roof. I read somewhere in an
old report (and I wish I remembered which) that at the western end of its
geographic distribution, occurrence of this architectural style peters out
around the old overlap of the Low-Frankish- and Low-Saxon-speaking regions
in what are now the Netherlands. Going eastward, it used to be the standard
well into Mecklenburg, but it can be found in Pomerania as well. In the
north, its boundary is the Eider River, the old Saxon-Jutish borderline. In
the south, distribution ends in Northern Hesse. By and large all this
coincides with the old Saxon-speaking area. Peripheral sparseness assumedly
coincides with colonial overlaps with Dutch (Low Frankish), German (Central
Frankish) and Slavic cultures and languages. The only iffy area is a
southeastern sliver from southeastern Lower Saxony via Berlin to Eastern
Pomerania. My assumption is that in terms of rural population those areas
retained a good deal of Slavic (i.e. Pomeranian and Sorbian) cultural
dominance, a large percentage of the population having been Slavs that
adopted the Saxon language while retaining much of Slavic culture.



You might argue that all this is academic, is merely historical background.
However, catching sight of these buildings (many of which survive) signals
“homeland” to many North Germans. (I feel this whenever I travel back into
Northern Germany.) It is perhaps just another piece of the fading picture.



If some sort of dedicated medium for Low Saxon did come about, the tricky
part would be to appeal to “Northern Pride” (Hey! How about that as a title?
But don’t translate it, since *stolt* > *stout* tends to mean ‘audacious’,
‘naughty’ or ‘intrepid’ in the far west.) without falling into the old rut
of *Heimattümelei*, the old
down-home-on-the-farm-back-when-things-where-still-right tradition to which
Low Saxon has pretty much been relegated by publishers and media directors
catering only to “codgers.” Such a medium would have to cater to a spectrum
of tastes and requirements and would have to be a broadening catalyst by
pushing the envelop outward and forward, thus “recruiting” the next
generation while also accommodating people with more traditional tastes.



Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA



P.S.: That’s a really nice overview you posted (below), Marcus!

----------

From: Marcus Buck <list at marcusbuck.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language promotion" 2010.01.08 (02) [EN]

From: DAVID COWLEY <DavidCowley at anglesey.gov.uk <mailto:
DavidCowley at anglesey.gov.uk>>

 Subject: LL-L "Language promotion" 2010.01.07 (03) [EN]
>
> Some very interesting bits on Low Saxon, Welsh, Catalonian. Here are a few
> more thoughts for the pot ...
>
> A factor which is often rightly said to have been very important for Welsh
> lang is translation of Bible in 1500s: not only did this come as an
> officially, royally approved translation, but Welsh HAD to be used in
> churches in Welsh speaking areas, by law. This was to be a key factor in the
> later high literacy and written tradition that was to develop in Wales over
> the next several hundred years. I understand that Luther's translation of
> the Bible helped form a basis for modern 'High' German. Had there been a Low
> Saxon version at the time, this tongue would have been a lot stronger. It
> seems sad that an independent Low Saxony (nor Friesland) didn't develop, or
> that 'Low German' didn't get to be the basis for standard German - it would
> have been that much closer to English (and maybe these states would have
> been as much against the Nazis as were the Dutch).
>

There actually were Low Saxon bibles before Luther and also some Low Saxon
translations of the Luther bible, e.g. the Bugenhagen bible. A list can be
found under <
http://nds.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibel#Bibel_op_Plattd.C3.BC.C3.BCtsch>. What
we had not was a high quality translation of the original
Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic text. This only came in the 20th century.

There are several reasons why Low Saxon got replaced by German. None of them
was the sole reason but their interaction led to this development.

First, let me note that Low Saxon was a very powerful language from the 13th
to 16th century. It was the language of the Hanseatic League and they traded
from the Atlantic coast of France and from Iceland to the Russian streams
emptying in the Baltic Sea, in all the Northern and Baltic Sea. The language
was so powerful that today almost 50% of the vocabulary of the (continental)
Scandinavian languages is derived from Hanseatic Low Saxon. The language has
left imprints on all the Northern languages, like Estonian, Lithuanian,
Latvian, and English and Russian too.

But since Charlemagne and the failure of the Stellinga the Saxons were part
of the Empire of the Franks. The emperor resided in the south and had no
maritime ambitions. So when the new world was discovered and all the
seafaring nations established the Age of Discoveries, there was no
coordinated state-led effort to participate from the Saxon/German part. The
Hanseatic League continued business as usual in the North and Baltic Sea.
Soon they were outperformed by the more powerful nations.

In the south of the German Empire merchants like the Fuggers concentrated on
the continental trade. This trade flourished and this improved the power of
the emperor. The emperor was never really able to execute his power in all
parts of the Empire. But with the flourising economy in the south and the
recent improvements that allowed better administration (e.g. Gutenberg's
printing press) the emperor's power was consolidated. All important
institutions of the Empire were concentrated in the south and the
chancelleries in the north had to do all their business with the Empire in
the Emperor's language.

Luther cannot be blamed for Low Saxon's fate directly. E.g. the number of
printed books in Low Saxon peaked in 1550, after Luther's death. The
printing craze of the Reformation actually helped Low Saxon. But the main
problem with Luther is, that his bible helped to consolidate a German
standard when at the same time the Low Saxon areas struggled economically
and were not able to establish a similar consolidation process. Although
Luther's language was based on the language of the south and the centre, the
south remained Catholic while the Lutheran faith had much success in the
North. So the Low Saxons had to deal with Luther's teachings written down in
German much. This further weakened the position of Low Saxon as written
language. While the number of German prints exploded, the number of Low
Saxon slowly dropped beginning in 1550. About 1650 German had replaced Low
Saxon as written language almost completely. There were still Low Saxon
prints but most of them were e.g. poems commemorating a wedding and stuff
like that, no serious books. As there were no books printed in Low Saxon,
universities were German now too. Any higher education, anything calling for
knowledge from books, was now conducted in German. Primary education and any
oral communication was still completely Low Saxon. Except for immigrants
from the south there were no native German speakers at this time.

But merchants wrote their accounts in German now, doctors their recipes
etc.. This dichotomy persisted for over 100 years. In the Age of
Enlightenment at the end of the 18th century this dichotomy "anything
educated German - anything where education is not necessary Low Saxon" was
so internalized that the ruling classes in the cities extended this
situative dichotomy to a class dichotomy. So instead of using German when
writing books or discussing philosophy at the university and using Low Saxon
at the marketplace the most educated class now started to use German all the
time. Of course when the market-woman didn't understand their German they
were still perfectly able to switch to Low Saxon.

100 years later at the end of the 19th century the class dichotomy was fully
established. There were still some native Low Saxons in the highest ranks of
society but most of the people who attended university were native
German-speaking by now. But as about 98% of the population had no university
degree, Low Saxon was still uncontested.

This only changed in the 20th century with higher mobility, improved
German-only education, more and more administrative and office jobs, the
expulsion and integration of millions of people after WW II and finally
German-only mass media.

Two examples to give an idea about when the drift towards German happened: A
(German nationalist) author writing about 1925 complained about his homeland
Masuria (which was predominantly Slavic, Masurian being a German/Low
Saxon-influenced variety of Polish) that the "Germanisation" of the area
does not work out well cause the uneducated Masurians adopted the local Low
Saxon instead of - as he had hoped - the German language.
A survey about the language of pupils in the schools of the Kreis Wesermünde
in 1938 gave a number of about 95% native speakers of Low Saxon.

More than 400 years of not printing Low Saxon did not much harm to the
language. But 50 years in a society in which public communication and mass
media are more important than communication in the family and locally and
the language is at the verge of extinction.

Marcus Buck

•

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